This issue is to explore the idea of creating a new REST Web Service endpoint.

Some pertinent points:

• At this point this issue is exploratory in nature. No decisions have been made about the nature or direction of this work
• A new REST endpoint would not immediately replace our existing external services system but they would co-exist for some considerable time

Initially identified requirements include:

• using valid/correct method verbs for actions, that is:
  • GET = fetch
  • POST = create
  • PUT = update
  • DELETE = delete
  • PATCH = apply changes (basically update)
  • HEAD = information
  • OPTIONS = fetch available actions
• correct response codes, for example:
  • 200 = OK
  • 403 = Access denied
  • 404 = Not found
  • 405 - invalid verb
  • etc.

Other thoughts:

• remove requirement for a db/services.php type of definition
• the API should be self-documenting
• ideally it should also be capable of creating a Postman-compatible collection for import into Postman and similar
• Ideally should generate a Swagger UI
• Support OAuth 2.0 authorization (or cookie)